Leave it to interns to outsmart the fast-food world and discover how to score more food for less cash. Interns always seem to uncover the best shortcuts to snag complimentary extras.
Thanks to an intern at ApartmentList.com, we’ve learnedsix techniques to get at least 15% more ingredients— and in certain cases, as much as 86% more — in your Chipotle burrito.
Dylan Grosz made repeated visits to the restaurant over two weeks, ordering five burritos per trip to identify where the biggest advantages appeared.
He hauled his bounty back to the office to separate and weigh each component, which is admirably thorough — I’d probably have eaten half the samples within minutes.
How to Get More Food in Your Chipotle Burrito
“Burrito lore suggests that choosing a bowl — with no tortilla to constrain portioning — prompts servers to pile on larger servings overall,” Grosz observed.
So rather than having your fajita veggies wrapped, order a bowl and let them mound it on.
You can still request a tortilla — simply ask for it on the side. The intern discovered that choosing a bowl plus a side tortilla instead of a wrapped burrito delivered about 15% more food.
Another reliable tactic, which I frequently see in the Chipotle line and that staff don’t seem to resist, is ordering two meats.
Grosz’s measurements revealed that when you request two different meats in your burrito — half chicken, half carnitas, whatever you prefer — you don’t receive a strict half-and-half split. Instead, you get roughly three-quarter scoops of each meat. The intern reports this results in 54% more meat, translating to a 9% bump in overall burrito weight.
He does note you’ll be charged for the more expensive meat selection, but a few extra cents seems like a small price for nearly doubling your portions.
Remember to put those dual meats into a burrito bowl to take full advantage of Chipotle’s generous serving spoons!
Foil-Busting Burrito Fun
If you combine these two Chipotle tricks with the other four ordering tips the intern recommends, you’ll end up with a massive meal — a burrito so huge you may want to double-wrap it with two tortillas ordered on the side. In fact, you could wind up with a burrito weighing up to 86% more than a standard Chipotle burrito.
Sharing your oversized burrito bowl with a buddy is considerate. Saving it for two meals is fiscally wise. But these simple experiments weren’t the only thing that determined the destiny of the many burritos brought back to Grosz’s office.
After separating and weighing the ingredients from each burrito during his study (I’m guessing he used a few forks instead of his hands), Grosz reconstructed the burritos and left them out in the office kitchen.
“They all mysteriously vanished within minutes,” he reports. You could say he was spreading the wealth.
Check out theApartmentList.com Rentonomics blogfor the complete list of money-saving Chipotle tricks before you place your next order.
How to Get Paid to Eat Chipotle
Scoring a bigger burrito is fantastic. Getting paid to eat it is even better.
While you wait in line or before you order, download the Drop app.
Drop is a fintech service that gives you rewards for purchases — including at Chipotle.
Just link your credit and debit cards. When you make a qualifying Drop purchase, you’ll automatically collect points, whether you’re buying groceries, ordering a ride or grabbing a burrito. Those points accumulate and can be redeemed for gift cards to popular stores like Amazon and Starbucks.
You can sign up right here.
